Saudi Arabia and the Emirates Are in the World's Top Three in Cost of Data Leakage

09:11, July 29, 2022

Orientalists talk about cyberattacks and protection in the Arab world

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, along with the United States, are among the world's top three leaders in terms of data leakage costs, according to UrFU orientalists. Losses from cybercrime in Arabian monarchies amount to billions of dollars. Cyber attacks in Arabian world are mainly focused on access to commercial, technological and state secrets (63.6%) rather than on stealing financial (6.2%) and personal data (29.6%). These and other features, as well as information security in the Arab world, are the subject of an article in Vestnik RUDN. International Relations.

"A critical asset of the Arabian monarchies is the oil and gas sector with businesses typically concentrated in narrow geographic areas, which greatly increases the losses from cyber attacks. For instance, in the last decade, Saudi oil and gas giant Saudi Aramco and Qatari RasGas have repeatedly been victims of major attacks using advanced viruses (2012, 2016, 2017) and drones (2019). Such attacks have not only global economic consequences, from rising oil prices to cascading effects on various sectors of the global economy, but also consequences in international relations," explains Gulnara Valiakhmetova, Head of the Department of Oriental Studies at UrFU.

This refers to the use of so-called digital weapons, which states are developing, explains the orientalist. Therefore, the attacks are interpreted as an act of external aggression and give reasons to retaliate with a cyber attack.

"The practice of using breakthrough digital technologies as a force component in interstate conflicts became widespread in the Middle East after the cyber attack on Iran's nuclear research center in 2010. At that time, a new generation virus Stuxnet was used, which was recognized as the first example of cyberweapons because of its enormous destructive potential. Large-scale cyberweapons tests in the Middle East in 2010-2012 presumably by the U.S. and Israel dragged Iran first and then other countries in the region into a digital arms race," says Leonid Tsukanov, PhD student at the Department of Oriental Studies, Ural Federal University, a co-author of the study.

In 2015, evidence emerged that the governments of Bahrain, Egypt, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates were involved in buying spyware and other malicious digital tools abroad, the Orientalists added. Secret cooperation with Israel, one of the leaders in the global cyberweapons market, has provided a number of Gulf monarchies with effective tools for countering Iran, fighting terrorism and controlling domestic opposition.

At the same time, the Arabian monarchies, due to the modernization, diversification and digitalization of economies, are rapidly increasing their presence in cyberspace and strengthening their position in the Global Cybersecurity Index. The most impressive results are those of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are among the top five global leaders in 2020. Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan are also demonstrating a "sprint" approach. Oman and Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Bahrain, which were the first Arab countries to establish national cyber security systems, are characterized by progressive type of development, orientalists say. The rest of the Arab states have a low level of cyber security.

Reference

Digitalization in the Arab world began almost a decade later than in the Global North. The region saw explosive growth in the number of Internet users in the 2000s, exceeding the global average in 2015 and reaching 62.96% in 2019. Although the Arab part of the Global South still lags far behind Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states in Internet access coverage (85.08%), the gap is already insignificant (103.2 and 120.2 people, respectively) in the number of mobile phone users per 100 people.

At the forefront of the digital society movement are the Gulf monarchies, where Internet access coverage has doubled in the last decade to 95% and higher, surpassing the leaders of the Global North in this parameter, and the United Arab Emirates became the first and so far the only state in the world with a 100% Internet user base. At the opposite extreme end of the Arab world are the least developed and politically unstable countries with Internet access rates of 30% and lower; in the "middle" group, the rate ranges from 57.2% to 72%.

The news article was translated by UrFU International Marketing Office
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